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The annual conference - which is the largest gathering of Canadian Marketers - is taking place on May 14th - 16th in Ottawa, Ontario at the Ottawa Congress Centre.

Full disclosure: I sit on the organizing committee for this conference and I have been asked to be a co-chair of this very prestigious event starting in 2008 (I gladly accepted that honor). I also got absolutely no favoritism. I filled out all of the requested documents - just like every speaker - and I wasn't even at the meetings when the keynotes were decided. All true.

"In understanding the new world of marketing, we need to rewind to the late 1400s. Hernan Cortez is a famed explorer. When Cortez arrived at the New World, many of his crew wondered what would happen to them in this strange new land? Cortez made a bold move: he burned the ships. There was no choice. It was time to create a new path.

Like Cortez, marketers must burn the ships. Every time a new channel arises, be it online marketing, Social Media or virtual worlds, we are far too fast to monetize the channel as if it were print, radio or TV.

Burn the ships.

New channels, like new lands, call for new tactics. Mitch Joel is your guide through the digital marketing world where the consumers are creating and in control of the brands.

Burn the ships.

It's time to let go of integrating traditional advertising with technology. It's time to look at how the consumers are consuming and what kind of advertising messages they are looking for during the engagement.

Marketers need to be willing to do what it takes to maximize all of these new marketing channels. There are billions of dollars at stake. Google, Skype, eBay, Starbucks, YouTube and many more of today's super-brands have done little to no traditional advertising to build their empires.

If you're thinking of coming to Ottawa for the big conference, there is an early bird rate and you can be sure we'll try to organize a Geek Dinner Ottawa as well as do some on-location Podcasting with the other speakers and attendees.